This invention comprises a device for loading guns with charges of powder and/or bullets or balls and the main purpose of the device is to facilitate such loading with accuracy and dispatch, coupled with ready cleanability of the device.
In pioneer times, the principal accouterments for loading guns or rifles was a powder horn, a bullet pouch and a ramrod. Such items have not entirely passed into oblivion since there are certain buffs who prefer to use these relatively crude items. Thus, while shooting muzzle-loading guns and rifles is still a popular sport, the participants largely prefer to use more sophisticated equipment when participating in muzzle-loading gun activities. The present invention is directed toward the latter type of equipment.
The development of convenient devices for loading muzzle-loading guns and rifles is a field of activity which goes back well into the previous century. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 163,404 to O. D. Phillips, granted in 1875, comprises a multi-bore rotatable cylinder rotatable upon a base having a socket to receive the muzzle of a gun or rifle and an offset plunger discharges the powder from the bores into the muzzle of the gun. The patent to C. W. Hovis, U.S. Pat. No. 184,079, issued in 1876, also is somewhat similar to the foregoing patent except that no plunger is included.
Within the past ten or twelve years there seems to have been renewed activity in developing more modern types of loaders for guns and rifles as is evident from the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,229,897--Snowden--1980, PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,620--Drake et al--1984, PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,517--Mansfield--1985, PA0 U S. Pat. No. 4,571,873--Houk--1986, PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,125--Curtis--1986, PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,623--Delap et al--1989.